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Ken Livingston, speaking at the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit in New York, outlined how London could save millions of pounds and five million tonnes of CO2 each year ? about ten per cent of London's total emissions ? if every commercial and public sector building takes up the offer to become more energy efficient. The 900 buildings run by the Greater London Authority group alone, could save more than 50,000 tonnes of carbon emissions each year, and save at least ?1m through lower energy bills, providing more money for investment in public services.

The Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Programme developed by the Clinton Climate Initiative with the C40 cities brings together four of the world's largest Energy Service Companies (ESCOs), five of the world's largest banks and fifteen of the world's largest cities. The programme will offer building owners a package with three elements: (1) an energy audit to quantify current energy use and emissions from a building and recommendations on a full range of measures to reduce them, (2) a comprehensive, discounted offer of goods and services guaranteed to deliver the identified reductions, and (3) finance to pay for the works, paid back through the guaranteed energy savings.

This initiative will deliver a real economic benefit for participating public sector and commercial organisations, typically leading to annual energy savings between 20 and 50 per cent. The initiative also creates opportunities for London's businesses that provide energy efficiency building services, since it will draw on subcontractors in each of the cities where the partnership operates.

Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said: ?This is why we set up the C40 cities climate group. By harnessing the collective might of 40 of the world's largest cities, and through a partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative, we are now able to deliver major opportunities for London. We could not have achieved this on our own. Today's announcement will help us to achieve our target to cut emissions from Greater London Authority group buildings by 20 per cent over the next three years. But the full opportunity is much larger - nothing less than to 'green' London's entire major building stock - commercial and public sector. If every building in London were to take advantage of this offer we would cut 5 million tonnes of carbon from London's 44m tonne annual carbon footprint.?